Shorties
by apsara
Summary: Assembling random challenge ficlets I've done. Characters and ratings will vary wildly, but I am fond of Senshi/Shitennou and smut :P ...enjoy!
1. Shorties: Author Note

**Shorties: Author's Note**

**STORY STUFF:** Just random challenge ficlets that I've completed. Characters and ratings vary. Hope you guys like.

**DISCLAIMER:** All the usual disclaimers apply. Nothing in these stories is mine except for the plot – Sailormoon and any other copyrighted property belong solely to their respective holders.


	2. Animal Style

**Animal Style**

…

…

…

…

…

"Oh, and can you put your special-spread-thing-whatever on it? Not hers, just mine." She glanced over her shoulder. "Are you sure? It's _really_ good. There used to be this place I'd go to, and they had this secret burger that you could get 'animal style'…um, I don't know why it was called that, but the sauce was _amazing_. I mean, this is kind of a hole in the wall, but I'll bet it's just as great. Divey places are usually the best, you know?"

Usagi shook her head rapidly, looking a touch dazed by Minako's nearly rapturous soliloquy. "Nooo…it's okay, I don't like when it gets all soggy."

"Suit yourself. But after a whole day's training…I think I could go for two. Excuse me? Yeah, you. Deep fry guy. Hey!"

They sat, and almost immediately, Usagi's fingertips grazed her fries. "Go for it, I knew you would," Minako said around a mouthful of lettuce, teasing plain in her voice, and pushed over a miniature cup of ketchup. Both starving after hours of practice, they let uncharacteristic silence reign, but for straws squelching in ice and cheesy paper unwrapping. By the time Minako had finished half of her burger, Usagi had gone through two, not to mention all the fries and two sodas. Watching her size up "their" vanilla milkshake, Minako's mouth quirked.

"You worked hard today. It's all yours."

Usagi's palm left its imprint on her frozen drink, condensation beading around it as she quickly stood up. "Ugh, all that soda makes me want to pee. Sorry, too much info," she giggled. "I'll be right back!"

A second after the bathroom door closed behind her, Minako sprang from her seat and made her way over, focusing on the circular blue sign, the white skirt within. She put her ear to the lock, ignoring the odd looks other patrons cast, and her hand's weight on the greasy doorknob was practiced, just a hair too light to alert Usagi inside.

She chewed her lip hard enough to break skin when she heard it again.

It wasn't that Minako didn't understand. That was just how teenagers were, after all. That was what they did. Agonized in front of full-length mirrors, thought they were too good, that they were never good enough, ate and threw it all back up again. Tried to claw their way toward beauty, scratching their insides out first. Usagi wasn't the first girl to wreck herself and rebuild in the shape of her idol, as hard as it was to watch. But what could Minako say to her, really? Usagi had so much to live up to. Her mother – the revered queen – had always been the most beautiful woman in the world.

As Usagi continued to retch, the noise allowed Minako to sag a bit against the door without being detected.

Oh, she understood a little, that cycle of guilt and release from it. Minako still remembered. Once – an age ago – she'd thought to command. Not as Senshi, but sovereign. Who was this warbling, pale-haired baby with neither aptitude nor diligence? Venus was so much more. A skilled diplomat, a brilliant tactician. Once, she'd indulged in sordid fantasies of ascension, only to summon her every power defending the princess she came to love like – like her own better reflection.

It had shamed Venus deeply to begrudge her, and worse, to take distorted pleasure in that weakness. But she had found forgiveness in guarding her princess more fiercely, more fanatically than any other could, and in absolving her blood toward that end.

With a slight twist of her wrist, the doorknob soundlessly broke, and she slipped into the bathroom. Minako exhaled fitfully, a familiar ache in her chest at seeing the girl kneeling over the toilet, saliva moistening her lips as she coughed and panted. Usagi hung low over her watery mess, as though she hoped the smell might induce more sickness. Minako crossed the linoleum tile quickly, grabbing a paper towel as she did, and pressed it to Usagi's open mouth. Cool fingers smoothed candyfloss hair from the damp forehead, and irises like spilled wine locked on hers.

"I just – I think there was something weird in my burger," Usagi explained weakly, taking the paper towel from her.

Minako briefly marveled at the capacity of genetics to improve and remake; Usagi's mother could never lie properly to her chiefest Senshi, but this one had been doing it since before they stopped calling her Chibiusa, or even Small Lady. It was her father's iron control she saw in Usagi's eyes, his quiet stalking of perfection. And it was that same perfection Minako saw there too, her mother's gift of grace. Her love of good food and equal ardor for video games, her gentle mouth and stubborn chin.

Yes, Minako understood how to first hate her perfection, then love it too dearly. Hadn't she done the same?

Guilt and release from it, shame and forgiveness. To binge and then purge. But even the Senshi of Beauty didn't know how to convince a girl on the brink of something more, that she was as beautiful as her mother – because –

"Mine tasted a little funny too, baby," she murmurs, lifting Usagi from the toilet. The girl rests her pink head on Minako's collarbone, shaking. "Don't tell your mama I worked you all day and tried to kill you with a moldy burger."

Because that was just how teenagers were, after all.

…

…

…

…

…


	3. Light and Lace

**Light and Lace**

…

…

…

…

…

Men don't like lingerie.

It's something of an understatement, but Khaleid's sense of humor has always veered toward subtle, anyway. Perhaps bordering on undetectable, like he wishes the protruding, stabby clasp of her bra was undetectable, wishes it didn't etch defiantly hook-shaped indentations in his chest as they slept. Then again, if he'd bothered to strip her properly last night, if he'd fucked her as deliberately as he liked, not twisted her soaked thong out of the way and bent her over his mini-bar, maybe he wouldn't be in this predicament.

Maybe "predicament" isn't the right word, given the agreeable circumstances that led Khaleid here. _Her cheek pressing against chill granite countertop, crystal tumblers taking shattering wing, slender fingers gripping a bottle of Haut-Brion '87, the year she was born to make him insane. Still in that white-hot Herve rolled up jumping hips, still digging her Fendi'd heels into his Ferragamo'd toes (he supplies; she buys; he mispronounces). Some things flung off, kicked off, peeled off while the hours tear on – and as they take their pleasure again and again – wear on. The bra stays put, mysteriously, especially so because in the hierarchy of things, Khaleid generally thinks of himself as a tits man. She has a way of reorganizing his priorities. And she always makes him hurry, where he would take his time._

He shifts a bit, and the pinch at his chest eases, red marks fading. It's pretty enough, Khaleid supposes. Satiny, the same shade as her skin; saturated, like peaches cut in half and left in the window. Doesn't mean he gets why women do that, wear white maybe twice in twelve Facebook albums' worth of black dresses, and buy a whole new set of flesh-colored lingerie to go with. Khaleid likes black better anyway, likes finding threads of old gold on her clothes like glittering veins in a mine.

Since when do I care what you like? She says that often enough, baby blues exultant when she fishes his wallet out of his pocket, scraps of buckled lace dangling from her arms. _But then she says it and drops Aquafina and hummus in his briefcase so he doesn't subsist solely on a diet of cooling coffee and kebabs from the halal cart by the lobby. Chick food, Khaleid states flatly when she calls to make sure he ate it. Um, your hair's already white; let's keep your arteries from aging too, don't think I'm letting you go all prematurely fat and senile on me. But that's a lie and they both know it, because Khaleid's in better shape than she is, and hell, it's her job to look good. Six feet and four inches of monolithic muscle, wasting away in front of your spreadsheets. Maybe I'll let you put a couple of those inches to better use, if you come home early. Maybe I'll do that, if you're a good girl._

_Since when am I a good girl, she taunts Khaleid, swaying and leaning just out of his reach. Her breasts pour over that damn bra, so nearly the same nude that if he squints it's like she's not wearing one (okay, not quite), it's like she's a statue cut in sandstone and come to life, quaking above him like golden earth splitting open, he parting the faultline. When she collapses against him, asleep nearly the moment she sticks her nose under his chin and sighs, pedicured toes curling happily against his shins, Khaleid dances his fingertips over her shoulderblades. He almost unclasps it, wanting her softness crushed to him without obstacles, without insterstices, but he doesn't want to wake her, she's got…_

My flight is at nine-twenty-five, do you think I'll be okay if I cab it? Six A.M. drenches the room in pale yellow heat, Blackberries drop frantic calls in humid subways, and she glides from Khaleid's arms like a firefly disappearing into daylight. He props himself up on his elbows, watching her toss things into a duffel. Bikinis, flip-flops, a ridiculous hat. He's guessing Malibu or Maldives.

Yeah, it's international, Terminal 4, I think? He tells her to call the towncar, and she giggles. A banker and a model and a towncar; how 2007. Hedge fund, not bank. Suits, all of you.

Khaleid brushes his teeth and makes coffee while she showers, and is amused to see that she's already dumped a bag of baby carrots on top of the files he'd brought home and completely ignored last night. Next to his cufflinks is a bottle of weirdly fiber-enriched green tea. He silently tosses the offending item into the garbage disposal. There is a limit to chick food, and he's just found it. Caffeine is okay. Caffeine laden with stealth diarrhea is not okay.

She steps out of the bathroom, rubbing her blonde head with a fluffy pink towel. He suppresses an ominous growl upon seeing that she's already dressed, albeit a touch disheveled. A smart little suit, and dark stockings she'll be sweltering in despite their sheerness. In fact, she already is, condensation pearling her face, unmade-up and young. Khaleid crosses the room in a few long strides, and patches of July morning silhouette their mouths and tongues as they push at each other, not gentle, but not hurried either. This is how he'd do things, if he had his way, if he had time.

Khaleid's palm slides between her hot thighs and lingers, and she moans a little against his lower lip. He tugs her snagged skirt over her garters, straightening to his full height as he does so. This means that she finds herself staring at his sternum, and he finds her disturbingly adorable, until she slips on those pointy six-inchers and almost dislocates his jaw with her newly elevated and very hard skull.

You almost look like you could be working for me. He cups her impossibly tight ass under that impossibly tighter skirt, hears a whimper rise in her throat before she hastily shoves him away. For you? Baby, I make your salary in three swimsuit spreads. Is that why La Perla keeps sending me thank you notes? A man should always buy a woman's lingerie. Khaleid considers that particular gem of logic unbearably ironic, that he must assume the duty of buying things he's only interested in utterly demolishing. She's knotting that fall of sunshine into a chignon, all business, and she'll be gone for a week, maybe more, and he'd been a total shit not to rip off her motherfucking bra the night before, because who knew when he'd see those glorious tits again?

He picks up her duffel and inquires without really caring. What kind of shoot? Oh, um, Esquire is doing a burlesque-themed thing. Khaleid must look as blank as he feels, because she rolls her eyes. You really do live in your office, baby. But there's a touch of trepidation in her voice when she tells him. Well, I haven't exactly done one of these before. I mean. Swimsuits are basically the same thing. It's kind of, uh, a lingerie shoot.

Some men like lingerie. Many men really like Mina in lingerie. But Khaleid – and it's something of an understatement – is not one of them.

…

…

…

…

…


	4. A White and Crumbling Princess

**A White and Crumbling Princess**

…

…

…

…

…

It's funny, really, how Kunzite thinks himself especially careful. Thinks only his lover's own morning star sees her stealing home.

And perhaps that's their strange love game – dancing the steel edge of palace rumor, growls and moans emptied into silencing skin, suspiciously golden lights on dark balconies. That gamble's not for everyone, perhaps.

But love in a graveyard? _This_, certainly, is reserved just for madmen and logicians.

…

These two play at something altogether different. They'll never be discovered where they lie, drenched more with dew than sweat in a bed of unruly vines. Aenor's short cries ricochet clearly off old marble and older bones; his murmurs could be a misbehaving ghost's. Only a white and crumbling princess witnesses their passion play. The flame-haired god of spring often shepherds death to this sacrificial mound. Today, as flowers push up between their tangled limbs, he brings life.

"How does it feel?" she wants to know.

"What?"

A long-fingered hand shades them, but trapped sun still smiles on his mischievous eyelashes. Always, _always_ she wants to know something. Her sigh skitters across Zoisite's chest, moth-winged.

"To kill."

The druid king doesn't start or flinch, as most others would. They are, after all, stretched atop a tomb scarcely older than he is. How many men has he slaughtered on this altar, by means brief or brutally prolonged? How many blades of grass carpet this burial ground?

"At first, you feel shame," he begins, and Aenor props her pointed chin on his lean shoulder. "But not shame in the way you expect. You're ashamed that you feel none. Nothing is changed for the worse. It's ugly, like finding rabbits drowned in the well."

Her eyes are bottomless, solemn. "More bile than tears."

"Clever girl."

"And then?"

Windswept branches kiss and part, and tumbling leaves vainly attempt to clothe their nakedness. Zoisite brushes a stray from the hollowed little dimples above her bottom, preferring his unobstructed view.

"There's a routine to it, and you're competent. It can be satisfying when you're efficient, and it's always irritating when you're not. Mess is unpleasant. You're clear-eyed, and you feel a clean purpose in acting, a balance."

"How long did it take you to get there?" she asks.

A loose twig snags in her hair, and her startled fit of blinking makes Zoisite laugh in place of his usual snicker. When his palm passes over her head, fresh petals erupt, and he trails the blue-black mass out. Nimble fingers form braids out of habit, out of need for constant movement, and he only answers Aenor with another question.

"Don't you want to know what happens next?" he taunts.

He's far better at making her blush than at skipping pebbles across the smooth surface of her temper. It makes him feel like a naughty schoolboy to even try, as thick lashes fall primly over her cheeks.

"I do. But you don't want to tell me."

How he still underestimates her, even now. Forever Zoisite's cutting tongue darts ahead of his brain; she waits at path's end, serenely delivers the coup de grâce. Having caught up with his own wit, the druid king now considers. _Does_ he want to tell her, how killing feels for one so accustomed as the Prince's black hand, his royal gaoler? It seems as though his mouth decides for him once again; the words hurry toward her like rivers gain strength down icy peaks.

"It's noble, almost. Like bedecking a bride for her groom. You feel unworthy of this terrible chivalry, of taking her hand and escorting her to the gods. But if it has to be done, there must be artistry, there must be – "

"Beauty," she finishes softly. "If it has to be done, there must be beauty."

There's no condemnation in Aenor's voice, only curiosity, and he imagines the names her sisters would excitedly call him. Barbarian. Torturer. Murderer. Have they no rituals that bind them to their lifeless silver soil? Unbidden, his hand grips her heavy braid, and she makes a faint sound of discomfort when he sits up, dragging her with him.

"You're hurting me – "

"They aren't just criminals, and I'm not just an executioner," Zoisite informs her matter-of-factly, not wanting any secrets. "Once, when we were weak, when we needed the gods to show us favor…"

"Black things are done to win power, but Earth is better for your rule," she tries to soothe, tucking stray copper curls back. "Your Prince and your brothers aren't alone in those sins."

"They were mine alone," he corrects Aenor. "Even my Prince doesn't know what happened in this cold kingdom before his time."

She pauses in her ministrations, lips pressing together. Behind her, a forlorn, pallid statue watches to see what he will say.

"When our sacrifices are especially worthy," he begins, "...we carve effigies that we do not forget them..."

"Oh," she whispers. "I have read how innocents are given up to the gods of your realm, in times of great need. Immortalized in stone – "

"Innocents, and even kin."

His clenched fist releases her plait; dead petals fall. "These flowers first grew when I braided my own sister's hair. When I readied her for death."

"Her statue – " she twists around sharply. In the arch of her slender back, pearlescent vertebrae protrude like dorsal fins, one, two, three.

"I did not know," he says plainly. "Nobody explained. I was just a boy."

"So – so you grew from weak to strong – " her voice wavers.

"The gods favored me."

"You became king – "

"_Yes_," he breathes at her nape.

"And you said – if it has to be done – " a sob in her gasp, she's already swinging to face him.

"_If_ – !"

…

The lost stone princess looks sorrowfully down upon her sacrifice.

Even Aenor's blue-black braid is severed by the force of his blow, and short strands tickle her pale cheeks. There is artistry, and there is beauty.

But Zoisite is at a loss as to how it feels.

…

…

…

…

…


	5. It Sings In Your Veins

**It Sings In Your Veins**

…

…

…

…

…

She's probably the first and only person – ever – to work an orange jumpsuit like it's fucking couture. The way the girl shimmies into the room, you'd think she was walking into a high school dance, not a high security conference unit. But her police report says she hasn't even graduated from college, so maybe he can't really begrudge her that strut, that youthful aplomb. And it's a good color on her, which is more than he can say for most of his clients.

As the officer clanks the rattling door shut behind them, he flips quickly through a couple of papers and looks up. Only to realize she's peering everywhere but at him with real interest, as though the dank walls are more than just peeling rust and futility. He raises an eyebrow, not sure whether to be amused or annoyed.

"Miss Aino."

"Yes?" The blonde languidly focuses on the drippy ceiling. He hears a faint pop when her shoulders roll back, then down again.

"My name is Daitou. I'm your defense attorney. And you and I have a lot to talk about."

"Daitou," she repeats, considering.

And then those wide eyes swing onto him like searchlights, nothing short of fluorescent. Glossed lips bend. "Well let me just say. It's a pleasure to meet you."

…

It is, without a doubt, the strangest case he's ever taken on.

Daitou's accustomed to angry punks. Reasonably burly guys. Not this honey of a blonde who looks like she's straight out of a swimsuit catalog – Google obligingly confirms it, though he's alarmed that his bathroom reading taste now veers toward the likes of hardened jailbirds.

This honey of a blonde who beat the living shit out of two of those aforementioned burly guys. And then slugged them right where it counted. Handles that Glock like a pro, this one, and they're still waiting on charges for the third son of a bitch.

If they ever identify his face.

…

Aino Minako, twenty-one, five-feet four-inches, one-hundred-ten pounds of walking death, answers his questions like she's at a job interview, and she knows she's acing it. Confident and direct. Two parents, both living, and a cat. No boyfriend. She likes volleyball and shopping. And cute guys, with a cool flutter of fair lashes.

God, he would _love_ to get this bitch on the stand. What jury could say no to that fairy face? Daitou leans back, almost starting to relax and enjoy this odd conversation. Almost, but something of her smile has the devil in it. Pretty girls' smiles always do.

"And, Miss Aino, have you ever killed anybody?"

His client doesn't hesitate for even a second. "Yes."

"How many?"

"The three they said I did. Why are you representing me, Daitou?"

"You want to tell me what happened?" he ignores her query.

"Sure. Which one do you want to talk about first?"

"Let's go in order, shall we?"

They do.

…

That night, when he goes home and peels out of his suit, her face on the front of a local newspaper catches his notice. Not surprising; it's a pretty high profile affair by now, for its gruesome peculiarity alone, but Daitou generally doesn't pay attention to media hoopla over his cases.

Still, he takes and skims the article without really intending to. There's a shot of her with her friends, all in their high school sailor uniforms. Cute. She's kissing a scornful dark-haired girl's cheek. _Real_ cute.

Daitou crumples it, tosses it into the trash, and misses. "Fuck," he growls under his breath, but he's too lazy to pick it up. Every now and then, while flipping between some old anime and a game show, his eyes wander back to the forlorn picture on the floor.

…

He jots down the details, expression contemplative, and only interrupts her to clarify any minor points. It doesn't happen often. His client's delivery is astoundingly lucid. Not sorry, not callous either, nor any adjective he can accurately summon. But it still doesn't explain how this little girl overpowered three – no, two, Daitou corrects himself, they may not get enough DNA on that last poor fucker – two guys maybe twice her size. Her description makes it sound like they were rag dolls in her hands.

"Okay." His elbows rest on the table. "There are a couple of ways to get off a homicide charge, Miss Aino."

"I don't think I'd fit into any of them."

"No?" he drawls.

"Well…" her yellow head tilts quizzically. "I _did_ do it. Not by accident. And they have a lot of proof. Hair, my DNA or something under their nails, I think fingerprints. I wasn't exactly cautious."

"So you killed them. Fine. Like I said, killing people is defensible." As Daitou speaks, he watches her hands. Buffed, short nails; deep gouges healing above the knuckles. A bruise or two on the arms. Now he's just dying to know what her victims look like. "Did you have help? Anyone else there with you?"

"No."

"Those guys were pretty big," he presses. "Miss Aino, if you want me to handle your case to the best of my ability, you're going to have to tell me the truth. All of it."

She grins wide, and Daitou feels something lurch in the pit of his belly. It's not desire.

"What can I say. I'm a strong girl."

…

Before heading out for the evening, he makes a detour. The office is dark when Daitou throws open the door, but he knows what file he's looking for. It slides into his briefcase smoothly, and then he's starting the ignition again. There are deep furrows in his brow when he checks the rearview mirror. Lips chapping from habitual, unstoppable licking, throat drying as brush fire.

Snapshots spread haphazardly over his coffee table, and Daitou scans them with a critical eye.

There's a lot of liquid red, to be sure. And no shortage of bruises and welts and incisions, some so deep that bled-out muscles emerge. Bones splintered at odd angles, pushing up under straining purple skin. What kind of monster _is_ this bitch? The names on the photos mean nothing to him, but oh, God, something about this whole mess means too much.

…

"What were they doing before?" he probes much later. "Bothering you? Getting in your face?"

"It wasn't self defense, Daitou."

His face remains a remarkable study in composure. "Do you want lunch? Coffee?"

"I guess you do, or you wouldn't be asking." Her countenance grows ruminative. "Unless it was."

"Unless it was what?"

"Self defense," his client elaborates shortly, as though her thoughts haven't recently assumed the logical consistency of bouncy rubber chickens. "I mean, it could be."

"Tell me what you're thinking."

"If I hadn't done it, they would have hurt me."

Daitou twirls his pen between his fingers, and her name slips off his tongue like melting sugar. "Go on, Minako."

"Me, and everyone else," she says softly. "They've done it before."

"Wait." He snaps the pen's cap off. "You're going to have to give me a little more than that."

"We died for them once." Those irises are like pale lasers on his, and Daitou forgets to disbelieve what she's just said. "See, Daitou, I don't make mistakes twice."

"All right. I'm lost," he holds up his hands. "Minako, the legal standard here requires that you reasonably believed violence was needed to protect yourself from _imminent_ force. Deadly force, in your case, since you offed them. And I'm getting the feeling they weren't about to attack then and there."

"By the time they would've attacked, it'd have been too late," Minako shrugs. "But yeah. It's like I told you the first day. I don't think you're going to be able to justify what I did."

"Do you want me to?" His hand edges toward his client's manacled wrists, and Daitou watches its progress, fascinated, before realizing where it goes. It stops, balls up.

"Not really. I'd do it again, you know." Her amused glance dips to his outstretched fist. "So, you never answered my question. Why are you representing me?"

"They're going to prescribe a capital sentence in your case. At first, I figured…" he shakes his head. "Who cares what I figured. My strategy's definitely changed. You'll be executed if I don't defend you."

"So?" she breathes.

"I thought – "

"You thought…"

"I don't know," Daitou confesses, in a turn of events rather surprising to himself. "I just had to."

Man the fuck up, he tells himself, shaken. You're supposed to be doing the asking, not her. His fist unclenches, like a rose blooming from the greasy metal table between them.

Minako's eyelids flicker serenely. "_Now_ you've answered my question."

…

No amount of painkillers is killing _this_ migraine fast enough. He pops an Ambien instead and passes out moments after his head hits the pillow. Daitou never dreams on this stuff, but then again, it's been a very long while since he's needed it.

That night, a familiar voice tells him everything. A hand reasssuring on his forehead, a sigh of sun-filled grass. A sound so beautiful and strong and wise that when he wakes up, his cheek drips with tears, his chest stickily heavy with more despair than he's ever felt. But he can't remember who said what. Why it was clearly and vitally important, even as his mind reaches for that saddest comet's brilliant tail.

…

The next time Daitou's there, she's got a visitor. He finds this out because the whole of the facility is watching the news upstairs for some inexplicable reason, and he traverses the entire lower floor without running into any staff. But there's still muted noise coming from somewhere, Minako and – who? Daitou follows the sound to the visitor booths. Even the guy manning the wiretapping system is gone, and it only takes him a minute's hesitation to slide into the recording booth and pop earphones over his skull.

"…get you out of here," her friend? says urgently. "I brought your transfor – "

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Oh, yes you are," the other girl practically spits fire. "You've been careless enough already. For God's sake, Minako, why didn't you just finish them off as Venus? What was the need for something so clumsy as a…a gun?" the last is dangled with supreme distaste.

"I don't have any regrets. My duty is discharged."

"Mamoru doesn't think so. He's already made a statement to the police. Hell, they're all watching the news upstairs right now. Talking about how Tokyo General's finest, Dr. Chiba, has come forward to solve this _brutal_ crime – "

"Mamoru is an idiot." Minako's voice hardens. "But we were all idiots, then. At least now things will go quickly. The prosecutor'll charge me with the third. He – he was still the greatest of all of them, Rei."

"And the fourth? Have – have you found him?" Rei seems to falter, though Daitou's not sure how he _knows_ that without having seen her face.

"Soon." Her tone is utterly bleak. "The Prince's stones will go quiet forever."

"He's still trying to reach Jadeite. You must hurry. I could help – "

"No. This was my task alone, and I'll pay for it alone, Rei."

Rei releases a long breath, as if in understanding. "You wanted to be caught. With the Shitennou's blood on your hands – "

Minako laughs, a painfully high peal he's never heard before. "Would there be any place for me in our damned eternity? Would Mamoru ever look at me again? I won't be the one to make Usagi choose. Between him and me. Never. I'll die first."

"And so you will. But…" An exhalation, wet and aching. "…what will we do without you? What will Usagi – "

"Forget me, someday. You have forever, my friend." She sounds so gentle, Daitou can't help but picture her lovely, golden face like the Madonna. "The baby will be born next month. And then, you'll crown Usa in my place."

He staggers knock-kneed out of the booth at that, unable to listen to any more that he doesn't understand, and knows he should. Daitou bodily rips the earphones off when they tangle in his arms. Running for the entrance, wingtips skidding on grimy linoleum. Someone upstairs serendipitously ups the volume, and then he hears it.

"Dr. Chiba, what made you come forward – "

Everything drones. Clamors, bedlams. But for the dream-voice in the television, perfect, sane. The midnight-eyed messenger, the King of reason and faculty. But still the words garble in his brain, and Daitou thinks he must go mad before he deciphers their terrible import.

…

However that Rei girl got through security yesterday, he's grateful. The metal detector doesn't so much as whisper when Daitou strides through. Back to the gray little conference unit, where this all began, where it all ends.

Minako sits on her customary chair, shackled knees drawn up to her chin, hugged by cuffed wrists. She smiles to see him. "Hey!"

"Hey." Daitou seats himself, feels cool weight settle solidly inside his jacket. "So you should know that – "

"Another charge. First degree murder. I heard."

"This, uh – " Daitou thumbs through his file. "Chiba Mamoru guy doesn't like you very much."

His client's features are open, guileless. "Well, he saw me do it. He's probably, you know, traumatized."

"Yeah. I took a look at the pictures. They're pretty appetizing, I've got to say."

"Are they?" she inclines forward.

Daitou opens his mouth, and then shuts it again. His palms rise to rub his sleepless, burning eyes, and remain there.

"Minako. Please. What the fuck is going on?"

"What do you mean?" she inquires.

"Cut the bullshit. I need to know _how_ you did that to those poor fuckers. I need – " his spine straightens. "I need to know."

Minako chuckles, indulgent. "No, I don't think so."

The gun hits the table with a heavy thud. "I do."

…

"Oh," she murmurs tenderly. "Jadeite's grown up, hasn't he?"

"Please," Daitou gasps. His skull begins its familiar throb. "I don't know who that is. That's why I'm here. Why I was drawn to your case. I had to get inside of you, even though I didn't know it. Everything's brought me here to you. _Please_."

"Didn't you hear Mamoru's warning? He saw me kill Kunzite. He knew what to do. The field of dreams..." Her neck cracks. "You should've listened. I've been hunting you a long time, Jadeite."

"Don't call me that! Who the fuck – "

"Then what's your name?"

"Jiyu," he moans at the pain between his ears. "Stop."

"J. Daitou," she sings trippingly to herself, and Daitou nearly retches on the damp floor. But there's control in him still, glittering dust of a past life, a golden general who coldly tells him to think. Fingers not his own seize the gun, point it at the girl in chains.

"You're insane," he tells her.

"And your life is pretty much over once you pull that trigger, don't you think?"

"Yours is done, either way. I'm doing you a mercy. They'll hang you for your crimes."

"Here I hoped to get to you before you committed any."

"I'm not a monster. Not like you."

"Not yet," Minako whispers. "But Chaos will find you. He always does. It's worth it – a Senshi's life for shedding human blood. They won't have to face you again."

Daitou's arm bends, and she smiles sadly. "Can you do it, Jadeite? Betray us a final time?"

Her metal-clad forearms prop his quavering wrist up, so that the barrel digs into Minako's sheened, lineless forehead. "I know it sings in your veins. Hate that consumes you. Every time. Just get it over with."

He pants loudly, the door clatters at their shouting, and all the fatal cacophonies of his mind erupt into white agony. Sweat trickles unceasingly through his blond curls, so like hers, so unlike hers. In another life, she could have been his sister.

"Do it! If you hesitate, I won't!"

The weapon falls precisely between her spread fingers, and true to the police report, blonde bitch is an old hand with that Glock, even in cuffs. I'm sorry, Daitou tries to tell his angel, his King. I didn't know how to listen.

A shot rings out like a thunderclap in humid summer, and oh, thank you, the field of dreams seems to sigh.

The door bursts open, streaming shards of light like heaven, and Minako's bright blue eyes fall shut even as Jadeite's irises widen, and welcome eternity.

…

…

…

…

…


	6. Sandwiches and Suppositions

written for the lovely verisimilitude9. please go read everything she's written, after which you'll probably come back and laugh at my pathetic inadequacy…but i can live with that because she's just that wonderful :) this is also a spiritual twin to **light and lace** and **skyscrapers and stars**...so i guess that makes them triplets :P

**Sandwiches and Suppositions**

…

…

…

…

…

She'll bet anything – he defuses bombs for a living.

It's not _im_possible, Ami reasons as she watches her barman draw his knife over his lemons and limes and long fingers. She can imagine those hands working around wires, against seconds ticking down, with the sort of recklessness that makes her lean forward little by little, 'til their bangs brush.

The usual, angel? he inquires, and her barstool slams back to the floor, and she's already squeaking it out: Um, I'd like the Thalia burger without cheese, and water – oh, sparkling, thank you. So the usual, he agrees without a trace of wickedness, already turning away from her deep blush in the dark.

Ami lifts her lashes just as he slides a placemat across the counter. For just a second, her eyes meet his – fey and flickering – and they hold.

His smile is terribly knowing.

_Well, she's not hard to know. As the most predictable creature on the planet, she couldn't surprise him if surprise followed her home and slept in her bed (in which there's more than enough room). Every morning is the same – cornflakes, the paper, the empty chair across the table. Stacks of medical textbooks and clingwrapped tuna sandwiches. Every night is the same, too. She comes here after a grueling rotation up at NY-Presbyterian, flops down at the bar, orders the first warm thing on the menu between two slices of bread. Every day._

_But her barman? In everything he does - tug out a battered phone and a pack of Camels, text with one hand and smoke with the other, accept cheek kisses at the front door like candy - there's an everchanging energy. Nothing staid about him; she's never even seen him wear the same smile twice (and oh, she would definitely notice if he did). He moves in a world of bright lights and late nights, and despite – or because – the fact that they have nothing in common...he feeds a fascination she never knew she had. Ami likes to think of it as...diagnosing his day job._

_Inkblot nails one evening (freelancer, perhaps?), stiff shoulders another (sculptor, so very obvious), and red eyes always (whatever he does, he's just tending bar until he does it big). She's guessed pianist (it'd be a crime to waste those fingers), Off Broadway (or those curls), even D.J. (just because). Maybe he's all those things or none, but the gloss of adventure clings to him regardless. She reads the quiche of the day through the gauge in his earlobe. She scents someone else's aftershave rising from his misbuttoned shirt._

_What would that be like? she muses. To hold possibility like the moon and stars in your hand?_

Maybe a gigolo, she decides irritably, watching a squealy blonde tug on his coppery locks. She's certain the term is outmoded and equally certain she'll never Google it to check. Ami draws the line at Googling the ridiculous, and it's _ridiculous_ how loud this place gets once his shift starts. Far too loud to study. So she studies him, his fingers dancing over slender arms and broad necks alike. He has a way of touching people the way they wish to be touched, before they even form the wish within themselves.

She shivers silently, suddenly, without knowing why. _Because this is his night gig. His home. Where he takes off his chameleon clothes, and she watches and wonders and drinks him in._

_This bar-bistro-café-cradle in a quiet corner of Hell's Kitchen. All the tired and tenuous young things come here, sparkles worn off, and order French toast and Italian roast at hours wholly inappropriate. He's neither French nor Italian, nor any species she can deduce with his absinthe eyes and ambiguous freckles. Doesn't keep the French and Italians from worshiping him the few hours he's there. His is a ready ear for every customer, and yet no one really knows him._

_Except her, of course._

_She's spent so many hours puzzling what he does by day, it'd be a grave omission not to puzzle who he does by night. Her barman's moving, always moving, without any apparent thought for where he's moving to, but he never drops a glass or bumps a table. No accidents, flowing and fishhipped like a danseur. Ami wonders if his...tastes are just as fluid. Another of her absurd suppositions. But anything and everything's possible, so long as they never speak. And if anything and everything's possible, tonight could be when he turns from his fickle admirers, slow burns his gaze over her instead. Tonight could be her perfume – lavender detergent will have to do – her, rising off his skin._

_Her._

Anything else for the lady doctor?

His drawl fans up a few wisps of hair, and Ami jumps at least a foot before he steadies her. His fingers trailing her spine leave her less than articulate: No, uh, just. The check, before she realizes she's not even in scrubs. How did you…? and he laughs. I know one when I see one. Occupational hazard. Nighttime barman, daytime –

Before Ami quite understands why, she's put two fingers to his lips, gentle.

They stare at each other in the orange light of last call, faced with the universal sign for silence. All else obediently falls away: the crowd, the sound, the plates balanced up and down his forearm, her dinner among them. Instead, there's the pressure of his hand at the small of her back, cinnamon? breath hot against her palm. He is close. Too close.

_She feels his question whispered against her fingertips._

Ami snatches her hand back. Grabs her coat, seizes her bag. Bolts into the Midtown murk.

Outside, the traffic lights splash on the pavement. She glances down at their green and red and yellow shapes. Like night blooming flowers in water, she could imagine, if she didn't know any better. Her chest rises and falls too fast.

She can't help but think the imagining's safer than the knowing. Even if it's ephemeral and easily broken, as partiers stumble through the puddles.

Inside, Jozef's gaze remains on the swinging glass door, as his fingers rise to his lips of their own accord. _What could she have answered? Anything. Everything._ Zef, Zef, Zef, the table behind him shouts, and he starts, suddenly. The noise settles over him, a comfortably adoring din.

As he ducks back under the polished wood bar, spares a last glance for the girl mingling with midnight, he grins: perhaps the knowing's worth waiting for.

And in the meantime?

There's the imagining.

…

…

…

…

…


	7. Skyscrapers and Stars

written for the advent drabblender over at shitennou_ai. hopelessly cheesy, but i hope you enjoy! in the same 'verse as **light and lace** and **sandwiches and suppositions**.

**Skyscrapers and Stars**

…

…

…

…

…

She doesn't really _do_ Christmas.

At least not in this city, she hastens to explain. All the tourists and newcomers in the streets, all the tinny carols in the shops. Peppermint mochas at Starbucks – there's no way they're not made with a hefty shot of Colgate – and roasted chestnuts at every street corner cart that successfully manage to both smell like sugar and taste like shit.

Newcomers aren't _all_ bad, Nixon lets the tips of his fingers just brush hers. She goes red – red as the merry lights strung across the wall – and snatches back the receipt. I don't get it, she tells the cash register, punching at buttons and biting her bottom lip; he longs to be biting it instead, hard enough to make her do more than just blush.

I don't get why everyone thinks Christmas here is some kind of magic.

_Isn't it, though?_

_His third day in New York, an El Paso boy dipping his big toe in the big city, and luck is one hell of a lady. Just wandering down Pearl Street on a deepening Christmas Eve, this place happens to catch his eye: a cheery flowershop tucked in back – of all things – a cheap liquor store. Crazy city people and their crazy real estate – who the hell wants to buy roses with their rosé? Him, apparently. Maybe he'll find a cactus. Something to make him forget his new studio looks out at a warehouse wall, something to keep alive by icy daylight and remind him a little bit of home. But instead…instead, he finds her._

_His third day in New York, and he doesn't even know her name. But something about this chanciest sort of meeting makes him think maybe…maybe this could be home, too._

_Some kind of magic? Sure. He's a believer._

That's a dying breed, you know, she teases as they step outside, and she flips the sign to CLOSED. This city gives you everything. Everything but what you _really_ want.

Nixon's inclined to disagree, maybe because what he _really_ wants is to take her panties off with his teeth. His batting average is pretty promising, to say the least. But he chivalrously refrains from telling her so, settles for holding his new friend – Chia Shrek – strategically over his fly and asking her where she stays. Brooklyn Heights, how about you? Same here, he lies shamelessly. _What else can he do in the face of her smile?_ Well, c'mon, I'll walk you over. She's all ladder-long legs and battered boots, flurries falling and powder glittering her lashes like a forest queen. He must be the hundredth guy to try his luck, or maybe the thousandth, and for a moment he wonders why she's giving him the time of day.

_But only for a moment, and then his cocksure grin returns._

The sky's purple out over the Hudson and the gale's a slap in the face as they step on the black ice of Brooklyn Bridge. He knows he's supposed to be looking up, taking in the famous scenery, but instead he's sneaking glances down. _At those Botticelli curls he'd like to tangle and those mulled wine lips he'd like to taste._ So what do you really want? Bet you two Colgate mochas I can make it happen. She laughs and pretends to think. My flowers in a bakery instead of a booze joint. But right now? he presses, and she shivers. Warmer hands. Done, he says wolfishly – and dares to seize her hand.

A second later, her soft fingers curl around his palm.

Nixon promptly congratulates himself on his balls, which are epically large and furthermore, epically cold. _Reindeer balls. Nice._ Twenty degrees and he's sweating like it's ninety, praying his palms don't get clammy, but if she notices, she doesn't let on. You know what I really want? she muses, her sweet face gone serious. What?

I want to see the stars.

He doesn't mean to chuckle, but the chuckle gets away from him nonetheless. Low and slow, developing color like an old-school Polaroid. Nixon knows he's making her self-conscious, her hand pulling away. He holds on tight and his laugh's like a foghorn. The stars, huh? he manages, finally. C'mon. Drive a harder bargain. You can keep your Colgate mochas, 'cause sweetheart, I'll show you the stars for free.

Big talk – for a small town boy. Nixon likes that, that husky honeyed challenge, that sprinkle of freckles across her reddened nose. _And wouldn't he like to kiss each and every one? To follow that constellation all the way down to its inevitable conclusion? Sure, he was the one to start this conversation, but if he's a lucky sonofabitch, she'll be the one to end it. It's just a shame those aren't the kind of stars he's planning on showing her, not quite yet._ Uh-huh, you'll soon be singing a different tune. Not to mention ponying up for our date. Oh, is that what we're doing right now? Sweetheart, you didn't notice?

She lets out a peal of laughter, hand coming up to her mouth, puffs of white slipping between. Nixon catches the delighted pink in her cheeks, and then catches his breath. He likes how she forgets to blush, 'til something he says reminds her. They've just about crossed the bridge by now; the rush of strollers and hobo Santas (he's counted six) has slowed. Humble Brooklyn awaits, all red-cheeked bricks and smoke-filled hearths.

You know we don't get stars out here, not with all the skyglow, she informs him smugly, and he suddenly stops. You want to see stars, sweetheart? Got to look in the right places. Behind them, as if on cue, the river opens and swallows the orange sun.

_For a fraction of a second, suspended between day and night, all of New York goes out._

And at first, it's just the skyscrapers.

They don't even look like they're there, in those jagged dark high rises – until one window, then another glitters into bright being. Then the townhouses and brownstones. The buttery glow of lamps in living rooms and nightlights in nurseries. Like gems tossed openhanded on a swathe of black velvet; a television glows otherworldly blue; a match is struck to a wick. A billboard is lit. A switch is thrown.

Oh, she breathes, and he smiles. _Oh._

Manhattan in her majesty rises before them, and extends a queen's handful of stars.

The Empire State catches light, first red, then white, and finally, brilliant green at the top. He watches her bottle glass eyes flash. Just like a postcard, huh? Mm. Yeah. Crazy how you New Yorkers are always looking at the sidewalk, never at the sky.

She leans back a little, the top of her head connecting but not quite fitting under his chin, and they contemplate the scene in silence. The snow and slush around their feet deaden every sound, the streetlights dim in their view, and the cars rush along beneath their feet, punctuating the night with the occasional perfunctory honk.

Marcela, she murmurs.

What? he blinks, as though coming to.

Marcela, she repeats, and twists out of his loose embrace.

His bushy brows knit together.

Marcela like that Beach Boys song, but with only one L. She tosses a string of ten digits over her shoulder as she starts walking. Merry Christmas, small town boy.

A grin slowly cracks Nixon's sunbrowned face, as he stares after her retreating back.

_Some kind of magic, huh?_

The December wind whips his shout away.

…

…

…

…

…


End file.
